Call Center Management Featured Article
Call Center Managers Need Training Too
MIA managers. Micro managers. Mean managers. Milquetoast managers.
There are plenty of styles of management. But the sad fact is that most of them are less than ideal. And many of them can be downright damaging for the people and businesses involved.
But management is hard. It’s stressful. It involves a delicate balance of business acumen and people skills. And it requires managers to understand the goals of their companies and how to achieve them.
That’s why manager training is so important. Yet many businesses rely on the trial-by-fire method of new manager introduction.
At times, this works out just fine. But more often than not, it results in frustrated managers, unhappy underlings, mediocre or poor business outcomes, and even employee retention problems.
Call centers are particularly vulnerable to these issues given the strict key performance indicators to which they need to adhere and their traditionally low agent retention rates.
Yet, although call centers tend to put a lot of emphasis on agent training, they seldom do that with their managers. That’s too bad, because it means call centers miss out on important opportunities to set expectations; provide compliance requirements; and offer guidance on how to communicate with, inspire, and motivate others. These interpersonal skills are very helpful both to drive improved agent performance and to help agents when they have a rough day. And, as anyone who has ever worked in customer service knows, challenging situations are regular occurrences.
A 2015 Ameyo blog suggests that the most successful call center managers talk to their agents, focus on agent engagement and retention, provide targeted coaching, use idle time to their advantage, review workforce management, put themselves in their agents’ shoes, and keep abreast of the latest advances in call center technology.
Edited by Mandi Nowitz